Stanley Tucci Has Had It With You and Your Sweatpants

Stanley Tucci is very much in the headlines these days as he makes the rounds plugging his new book, Taste: My Life Through Food. As the Wall Street Journal notes, his side career as a foodie largely began after the release of the 1996 movie Big Night, his directorial debut about a small restaurant. "I'd walk into a restaurant and people would be like, 'Oh, you made that movie. You told my story,'" says the 63-year-old actor. Some highlights from a few of his latest interviews:

• Sweatpants: In his wide-ranging talk with the Journal, Tucci vents about too-casual clothing in public—especially sweatpants. "Not just like, 'Oh, I've been running, and now I'm just going to stop at the store.' You haven't been running. You just wear sweatpants because you don't want to wear pants. I sound like such a snob, but I'm sorry, just put on a pair of pants, wear a belt, get a nice pair of shoes. It doesn't cost a lot of money to dress nicely."

• Sex symbol: Tucci addresses his late-in-life status as what the Guardian describes as a bona fide sex symbol. (The outlet says this 2020 video helped.) "I'm thrilled," he tells the outlet. "I hope it lasts, you know? I do joke with (wife) Felicity, of course, where I say, 'Do you know how many millions of people ...' She's like, 'Yeah, whatever.' But beyond that I don't really think about it. I'm glad of it, but it's not on my mind all the time. Life's too complicated already."
• On the menu: An interview with Tasting Table keeps things focused on the food. Asked what regional dishes should show up more on American tables, he spoke of Northern Italy. The food is "really interesting and wonderful, from Piemonte and Lombardy, from Trentino-Alto Adige," he says. "And then you get a real mix of the Austrian, Hungarian, German influence, even coupled with the Italian, and simply because of the geography. You're getting a lot of different ingredients. You're not going to see as many tomatoes, you're not going to see as much pasta, all that stuff. More root vegetables, more potatoes. So I think those recipes are really fascinating."

(More Stanley Tucci stories.)